April 16, 2015

Modi's Transatlantic Agenda

The following article was published as a Transatlantic Take by the German Marshall Fund on April 16, 2015.

Diplomatically speaking, it has been a busy first year in
power for India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi. In addition to hosting the
leaders of the United States, China, and Russia, he has embarked upon state
visits to India’s major democratic partners — including Japan, the United
States, and Australia — and attended multilateral summits in Brazil, Nepal,
Australia, and Myanmar.

Over the past week, Modi undertook an unconventional
transatlantic tour to France, Germany, and Canada. This constituted his first
visit to Europe as prime minister and a common theme was implicit in that all
three countries are G7 members, and as such, advanced, industrialized
democracies. While Modi has received some criticism at home for his foreign
trips, the flurry of diplomatic activity in his first year as prime minister
indicates his clear desire to position India as an active international actor.
Modi’s multifaceted agenda on his latest set of visits also conformed to what
is now a familiar pattern of international engagement. Broadly speaking, his
transatlantic tour over the past week served five important purposes.

The first was to seek investment and technological
partnerships with the goal of rapidly developing India’s economy. This
objective is at the centerpiece of Modi’s domestic agenda and political
platform. While poverty levels in India have fallen dramatically since the
early 1990s, the country is still home to the largest number of the world’s
poor. The opportunity for growth is now immense given India’s political
stability, market size, and low wages.

As advanced economies, France, Germany, and Canada are
well-placed to be partners in India’s development. For this reason, Modi met
privately with French business leaders in infrastructure and defense technology
in Paris as well as investors in Toronto. He visited the Airbus facility in
Toulouse and the Siemens vocational training center in Berlin. Modi’s
participation in the Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industrial fair, also
highlights India’s privileged role this year as a partner country. The prime
minister used this opportunity to advertise business opportunities in India,
which is proving a rare bright spot in a slowing global economy.

The second objective, closely tied to the first, involves
outreach to the Indian diaspora, whose investments have helped drive the Indian
growth story. Diaspora outreach is particularly relevant for Canada, which is
home to over 1.2 million people of Indian origin. In France, Modi’s engagement
with the local Indian community was broadcast to French territories, many of
which have sizeable ethnic Indian populations.

Third, there is naturally a political and diplomatic
dimension, which involves increasing the face-time and improving personal
relations with other world leaders. Modi took a boat tour on the Seine with
French President François Hollande and had lunch and dinner with Chancellor
Angela Merkel in Germany. He has also long enjoyed a strong rapport with his
Canadian counterpart, Stephen Harper, who was among the first world leaders to
call Modi following his election victory last year. Additionally, in an
implicit acknowledgement of India’s appreciation for democratic traditions,
Modi opted to meet privately with leaders from his host countries’ second-largest
political parties, including former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Sigmar
Gabriel, leader of Germany’s Social Democrats.

The fourth dimension, and the one that has grabbed
headlines, involved strategic relations. France, in particular, has
historically been a close partner of India in terms of defense, space, and
nuclear technologies. The announcement that India would buy 36 Dassault Rafale
combat aircraft, with the option of buying more, was especially significant,
and the deal promises to keep that platform’s production line running.

Finally, there were aspects to Modi’s visits that were of
considerable symbolic significance. In France, Modi visited a memorial at
Neuve-Chappelle honoring the Indian soldiers who perished during World War I.
Although little-remembered in either Europe or India today, over 60,000 Indians
died fighting in Europe, with some units suffering casualty rates of over 100
percent as replacements were decimated. In Hannover, Modi unveiled a public
statue of an Indian icon, Mahatma Gandhi. And in Toronto, Modi paid his
respects at a memorial for the 1985 bombing of an Indian airliner that was en
route from Canada to India. The attack, in which 329 people were killed, was
the worst terrorist attack in aviation history until 9/11. Modi’s visit to the
Toronto memorial underscored the common threat posed by terrorism to India and
the West.

In the age of jet-setting diplomacy, there are
diminishing marginal returns to official visits by heads of government.
However, the rich agenda on offer during Modi’s tour to Europe and North
America offers one example of purposeful messaging and specific deliverables.
Modi’s economic agenda was, as usual, at the forefront. But, equally, the
political aspects related to India’s common values with the transatlantic
community should not be overlooked.